


these wilted petals

by ikijai



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Injury, Post Season 7, Pre-Slash, in which tara gets to be upset, kind of, pre-Season 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-08 22:43:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11091453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikijai/pseuds/ikijai
Summary: It doesn't add up, Tara thinks. This weird paradox where the temperature is warm but they just won't seem to feel it.





	these wilted petals

 

The sky at this time of day, whatever it is, is made entirely out of too-distant pastels infiltrating uninnocent eyes. There's a particular tint to it that can’t be defined or obtained, not when the world is dead and the people might as well be too.

Tara thinks they might kill her, just like they killed Denise. Before there’s even an opportunity to do something worth dying for. She thinks  _yeah_ , the sky is beautiful, but the world definitely _isn’t_ , so what’s the point? Denise was a doctor— _the_ doctor. What she did was important. They still did it, as if she were just thrown-away parts. As if she wasn't worth a damn thing. They _killed her._ Just like they killed Olivia and Sasha and _so many others_ that it's difficult for anyone still breathing against their will to feel present most of the time. People who were good. People who didn't deserve to die the way they did. It's too painful and too unfair and undeniably _fucked up_. The whole thing.

They’re used to it though, this twisted, sadistic process of elimination—that's what they tell themselves. It occurs more often than not these days. They have no other option _except_ to be used to it. That doesn’t mean they don’t still lose pieces of themselves every time one of their own is taken and that doesn't mean they don't feel a little more dead than they already were. Yeah, the world went to shit, they just didn't know the people would too.

Tara knows the truth. That a part of her dies every time someone who meant the world to her does. That nothing left on this war-torn, people-destroyed planet will ever be tangible for long. It almost makes her miss the days when walkers were their worst problem, their most prominent threat.

Traveling into the past is impossible, it always was. That doesn’t change that the past is where Tara’s thoughts drift every time her eyelids shut, imagining the way it happened and _why_. Why she wasn’t there to prevent it, why she wasn’t there to protect one of the only things in this world that made her feel  _present_. Now, sitting out on the porch of the home she once shared with the deceased doctor feels like punishment instead of the promise it used to be. It's been weeks since Denise died, but in innumerable and unthinkable ways, it feels like yesterday.

She thinks of Jesus’ and the priest’s words from what feels like years ago, when they'd waited outside the outpost for their team to finish the job that ignited the spark in this on-going war with _them_.

_Do you? Do you love her?_

_Yeah_.

_Then you know what you're fighting for._

“Tara?”

The voice pulls her back into the present—unwillingly, thankfully. She'd pick that tone out of thousands. Tara doesn't jump, doesn't even twitch, just tilts her head to keep the walking figure in her peripheral. It's now that she realizes she's been crying, the sky’s image distorted and discolored through wet pupils. _I should wipe them away_ , she thinks. But it's useless. She knows Rosita’s already seen the tears.

And _of course_ this is where Rosita would find her, entirely made up of tired limbs and disassociating eyes, of all places. The worst she's ever been. Tara wills herself not to turn the whole way. 

“I was just—”

“I know,” Rosita interrupts, voice desolate and posture defeated for what has to be the first time since Tara’s known her. She is a wounded warrior in every definition of the term. “I thought maybe you wouldn't want to be alone today.”

Tara tries to think of every possible excuse, anything to make her walk away.

“You're injured,” she utters, “you should probably be in the infirmary.” The words are thrown out like a threat, but her tone falters and tears in places and on top of this, they both know she isn't capable. Not today and probably not ever.

 _I do want to be alone_ , she thinks. But she knows it isn't true and so would the person who can practically see through her at this point. And when said person is directly _there_ , determined and unmoving, there's no other option except to peer up.

When she does, she takes in every intricate detail: dirty outfit and unkempt threshes pulled up into a ponytail. The scar that’s nearly nonexistent, with the only proof of its presence being a faint, pastel line. Wrath thinly veiled behind a thoughtful gaze. The sight is almost terrifying.

Determined eyes scan over Tara’s dejected form, wearing a jacket with knuckles shoved deep into the pockets though it isn't cold out today. She disregards Tara’s worry over her injury. Typical. To be expected at this point.

Just as Tara knew she would, Rosita’s taking the open space next to her and reaching into her own t-shirt pocket. She's wearing that too-tight expression and those equally tight gloves, just like the old days. Though the tension between the two of them is palpable, neither will budge an inch.

“Well,” Rosita utters, ignoring the words Tara only half-meant and didn't at all want to say. “I found something you might be interested in.”

When she turns to face Rosita the whole way, there's an intense glint in her deep, dark eyes. Tara’s eyebrows knit together, tears drying and wonder inevitably peeking through.

Between Rosita’s thin fingers is a plastic zip-lock bag with old pieces of paper jumbled up inside.

“Pot." Rosita shrugs before failing to disguise a wince at the pain from the wound that's still healing—doesn't look to see the _I told you_ written all over Tara’s face. “Pretty old, I think, but it'll probably do the trick.”

Though she tries for the sake of them both, Tara can't ignore the blood pooling out of Rosita’s wounded shoulder and staining her once white t-shirt.

“How's the wound?” she inquires, ignoring the drugs just inches away. She knows the ache from the gunshot that's only days old is killing Rosita inside, but she asks anyway. It's her duty to.

“Could be worse,” Rosita deadpans, too instantly and too prominently. Always the one to downplay her own pain and push it into non-existence.

Then Rosita is digging into her pocket until she’s pulled out a tiny metal lighter.

“Where'd you get _weed?_ ” Tara asks incredulously.

She lets out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding in when Rosita visibly un-tenses.“I found it a couple weeks back in an old house outside the walls. Pretty weird, huh?”

“The lighter?”

“Daryl’s. Owed me one.”

Tara tries to keep a poker face. “Did you, _you know_ , do that before all this?”

“You mean before the world ended? Yeah. Every now and then.” Rosita pauses, processing a thought that's just come to her. “Did you?”

Tara lifts an innocent eyebrow at this, picturing the high she hadn’t gotten since she was a teenager. Joining the police academy meant giving that type of thing up, but the way things turned out, she couldn't find it in herself to give a damn one way or the other. That was a past life.

“Yeah,” she shrugs. True to the point where saying no would be a fallacy. “Kind of.”

Rosita tries to laugh, but the sound gets stuck in her throat, tortured and strangled into silence. It's only worse when Tara tries to play it off like she doesn't notice.

“What're we waiting for, then?” Rosita asks, then whispers, ”I can't stand seeing you all sad and droopy all the time, Tara.”

 _Touché_ , she thinks. But she knows that isn't what Rosita wants to hear.

“Pass one to me?” she says instead, palm outstretched and poker face intact.

Rosita’s lips turn up into what Tara thinks imitates a smile. It's barely there and tight at the corners, but it's damn well better than nothing.

 

..

 

Twenty minutes and one lit joint make all the difference. Tara’s high is distracting and all over the place.

“You feel good yet?” Rosita asks.

Tara blinks twice. “Yeah, you?”

“I think it's working.”

“Yeah.”

Rosita’s eyes ask what her words won't:  _you_ _okay?_

 _No_ , Tara’s say back. _I don't know if I ever will be._

But today, she'll pretend, and Rosita will play along because she cares just enough to. The physical wounds will heal in time. They don't know whether their insides will. 

They pass the joint back and forth, waiting for it to wear off, hoping it won't. They don't feel the impact of time. 

When it's Tara’s turn to take a puff, Rosita jumps at the opportunity to break the deadly silence, lip twitching before the words pour out.

“You killed that guy who shot me.” Though it's simply the truth, the unasked question is obvious: _why?_

Tara doesn't think twice, just tells her the first thing that pops up. “He tried to kill you. There was nothing to think about.”

Just like that, the topic dissipates. They've killed for each other and they _will_ kill for each other. Simple. Obvious.

Tara passes the joint back. “Eugene was out there,” she says, tone somewhere between disturbed and perplexed. “I know they took him, but—he was working _with_ _them_.”

 _The day the place they used to openly call home was invaded from the outside in_. These days, it's felt more like a war zone than anything parallel to a home.

“Puta,” Rosita spits out around whirls of intoxicating fumes. “Goddamned coward—always has been, always will be. I should've known he'd turn out to be a traitor too.”

The venom laced through her words takes Tara aback. While she understands to a point, she doesn't know what to say. She’d liked Eugene, as weird and dishonest as he was at times. He’d been trying to preserve himself from the start, something they all understood even if only on the most basic level. But just days ago, it got one of their people killed. Tara couldn't be okay with that. Rosita’s probably right then, she thinks. Some people were just destined to be traitors from the start.

Rosita takes a knife out from where it'd been tucked into her pants, using it to trace patterns into the old, white paint of the porch while Tara watches. Her fingers twitch, as if she's deciding whether to give up or dig deeper.

“This isn't how this place was supposed to go down,” she iterates. Downcast eyes sting with white-hot rage and Tara’s imitate pools of worry. With every word, Rosita pulls her injured shoulder in tighter, pretending it doesn't hurt like hell. Pretending the throbbing hasn't been incessant for over a week.

“I can take a look at that, tape it back up. Inside, there's—”

“You're not a doctor, Tara.”

“But I knew one, I know some things.” Tara pauses, words dead weight behind jittery, waiting lips. The only way she'll say the next words is if they're whispered, despondent. “Why won't you just let me do my job?”

“ _It's not your job to take care of me_.” 

Tara's heart wrenches and twists uncomfortably tight, a product of her own insecurity and dug-up dread.

Though she thinks about pushing back, pictures it that way, the words come out soft and deliberately watered down. Octaves different in their drug-induced state. “Just like it wasn't yours to take care of me back when I got hurt?”

Rosita’s eyes visibly widen and Tara knows she's struck into something deep, something she can use.

“Yeah,” Tara keeps going, “they told me you waited. You were there when I woke up, and even then, _even then—_ ”

“That's not fair, Tara. I thought you'd—,” Rosita trips up, voice practically pulsating with an unusual uncertainly. She puts the joint out. It's only getting in the way. “I didn't know if you'd make it.”

 _Die_ , Tara thinks. That unspeakable, terrifying word. _You thought I’d die._

“Well, this isn't that different. And yeah, I think it _is_ my job. It's what we do, or did you forget that too?” Tara whispers, voice wavering in and out of uneven tremors. When she’d pictured them talking things through, this isn't what she’d wanted.

“What's the point?” Rosita exasperates, too obviously torn up and teetering on the edge of defeat, hands thrown up impatiently. “The world is damned to hell anyway.”

The air is icy though the weather isn't. It doesn't add up, Tara thinks. This weird paradox where the temperature is warm but they just won't seem to feel it.

“It won't be."

“How can you be so—so _optimistic_? How can you still think that after what they did?” Rosita demands to know through clenched teeth. “People _I_ got killed.”

 _Oh_ , Tara thinks.  _This._

“It wasn't like that,” Tara says, calmly as she's able to over her pounding heart and dizzy thoughts.

“You were there. You watched—you know what I did.”

And she does know. _Olivia. Spencer._ Thinking their names is as necessary as it is painful, and she’d had a front row seat to their deaths.

Tara won't take it, though. Can't take it.  
“They told me what happened out there, when you guys got trapped out in the woods. What that piece of shit said to you, what Daryl did because of it. It's no different from what you did, okay? You didn't know what would happen. You thought they'd pick you.”

Tara wasn't there to see it, that time out in the woods where two of their people were violently decapitated. And yet, the memory of their deaths burns iron-hot at the back of her throat. _It's worse for her_ , she thinks. For Rosita. She was there to watch when it went down and _she_ had to drag her own body out of those woods with their dead ones.

“No, Tara,” Rosita grounds out, worked up and teeth still clenched. “I wasn't thinking. I didn't think, I just—I just—”

“You just tried to protect your people.”

Tara thinks of her own decision not to tell their people about Oceanside. About how she made a promise to people she didn't know because she thought it was the right thing to do. _Yeah_ , it was probably the wrong decision. It wasn't a damning one.

“It should've been me,” Rosita utters, looking Tara directly in the eye and tearing what’s left of her heart to pieces. “They should've killed me.”

 _“Don't say that_ ,” Tara pleads, placing a hand over Rosita’s wrist that’s only pulled away instantly. She pretends the jab doesn't hurt worse than any physical pain she can imagine.

“Why not?” Rosita derides. “It's the truth. Everybody knows it, including you. What happened to Olivia, I did that. _My_ plan got Sasha killed. It should've been me—both times.”

Tara clears her throat, tries to act like it doesn't dip deep into her very soul. The usual _I'm okay even though I'm not_ pretense.

“Jesus told me what they did to that kid back at hilltop,” Tara tries. “Killed some innocent teenager over nothing. They're not people, Rosita. They kill just because they can. What you're saying, about how it was your fault? It's not that simple. It never was.”

Rosita’s turned livid, all worked up and walking away from the porch, old paint chips dusting her jeans and knife dug deeply into the wood where she'd just been. Tara pushes herself up to follow behind and doubles her steps to keep up, unwilling to be left behind. Not this time.

 _I can't just wait_ , Rosita’d said that day. Then she’d walked off, coming back with zero weapons and one less person.

Tara’d let her disappear that day. This time, she won't.

“You don't think I _know?_ ” Tara comes up directly behind her, unwilling to back down. “I've done things too. None of those things were simple.”

Rosita keeps walking, pace seemingly increasing with each word Tara utters from a distance.

“You're just going to walk away?!”

“ _Why're you yelling?!_ ”

“Because _you're_ yelling and because you wanted to talk to _me_ ,” Tara shouts back.

“Yeah, well, I'm not known for my brilliant ideas,” Rosita utters out, disappearing still.

The majority of the safe zone isn't around to hear their dispute—they're either on weapon searches or fulfilling duties outside the walls. Tara's thankful. No one will try to interrupt.

Rosita's pace slows, though she doesn't turn around. They're a ways from where they were back at the porch, yards between them.

The disappearing figure’s voice is dangerous, tantalizing. “What you did is different from what I did, Tara. You were being defensive. I played offense and I fucked up. You can throw it right back at me if that's what you want to do, but it's the truth.”

 _You're a rose_ , Tara thinks, even now. Even in the beginning, when she was as unattainable as she was distant. When she'd arrived in that truck with her then traveling partners. Tara's always believed that's what Rosita was, one of those beautiful, transcending flowers that are now a part of the past, only remembered in thought and the occasional photograph. But there’s one thing she always seems to forget about them: _roses also had thorns_. And they're all dead now.

_You're a white-hot rose with non-delicate petals and piercing thorns, but that's okay. I know who you are deep down, I know this isn't you._

Tara isn't sure when or why her eyes had grown wet again, but the tears protrude in waves, uneven and unrelenting. Maybe it's the drugs or maybe it's that they're not working. “You're pissed,” she yells out to Rosita, bottom lip trembling and teeth numb. “I get it, I do. But _I'm pissed too._ ”

Tara is usually preserved and held back, but not today. Not in this moment where she’s unchained and undone.

“They killed my girlfriend, Rosita. _You_  watched. They shot a goddamned arrow through her skull just because they _could_. And they killed _our people_ just because they could, too.”

Rosita decelerates until she's practically still, strides too close together and form too tense. Her back is all Tara can distinguish and Tara isn't sure if she’s prepared to see more yet.

“ _You_ kept Dwight alive. Rick and Daryl and _everybody_ kept Dwight alive in that jail cell when there was nowhere for him to go and every opportunity for him to die. I wanted Daryl to kill him, right there while I watched. I wanted that knife pushed deep into his skull so that just _maybe_ , he'd feel the pain she did. So yeah, you may be pissed, but _I’m pissed too._ ”

Rosita’s too quiet, exasperation dissipating into a thinly veiled despondence. She’s stopped walking, but doesn't turn around just inches ahead. _I took it too far,_ Tara thinks.

Even now, Rosita doesn't demonstrate emotion, just ducks her head and twines her thumbs together idly as Tara comes to a stop directly behind her.

“She was good, Tara,” Rosita whispers.

“Denise,” Tara says softly, placing a careful hand over Rosita’s non-injured shoulder and turning her just enough to see into those tortured eyes. This time, she doesn't pull away. “It's okay to say it.”

Rosita nods up and down, unable to do much else yet. “He was too.”

Tara knows who she means. It's painfully obvious and terribly uncomfortable.

“I know he was a dick a lot of the time, but he was good too.”

“Hey,” Tara whispers, pulling Rosita’s ducked head back up until her chin isn't touching her wound-up chest. “Would you look at me, dollface?”

For just a moment, it feels like they're in that tiny garage, trapped by walkers and only keeping it together for the sake of each other.

“What're we going to do, Tara?”

When Tara peers directly at the other woman, there's a sad, inflamed tint to her umber eyes. And _god_ , if she doesn't look young and terrified and imperfectly perfect all at once.

Tara knows this feeling all too well—this helplessness. This thinly-veiled yet all-too-present sadness. People are dead. People will keep dying and there isn't a damn thing they can do about it.

It's a process. Die. Wash. Mourn. Die again next week and hope you won't wake up the next day. _You don't deserve to keep going, not when they're dead but you're still here. What's the point?_

“We’ll get the weapons,” Tara promises.

“It won't be enough.”

“We've got people on our side now,” she pushes. “The Kingdom. Hilltop, Oceanside. We’ll do what it takes, together. Then? We’ll kill every last one of them for what they did to our people.”

“We’ll win, you understand?” Tara iterates, unsure of which one of them she's trying to convince. “We will. People like that, they don't beat people like us. It can't work that way.”

Rosita just nods again, indignation placating into a dull, deadly silence. Even now, the undying determination is there, weaving itself back together.

 _It sucks and it's scary, but it's time to be brave._  
_Yeah_ , Tara thinks. _Time_ _to follow your own advice._

 

..

 

They're toward the back of the safe zone before either of them talk again, the dull sound of walkers outside the walls penetrating their keen ears. Tara knows Rosita needs this, though. To not be out in the open while she's dispositioned and torn apart.

They're up against some tough, white wall. An unknown house with an unknown owner who's probably dead.

This is when the words that’ve been trapped in Rosita’s throat for weeks come tumbling out, one by one and out of order. She talks and talks until she's doubling her own steps just to understand what she's trying to say. She doesn't think, just does and does until the words are dried out and wide open in the form of _I’m sorry, Tara_ and _I shouldn't have interrogated you after Denise died, I shouldn't have walked out._

Tara brings a knuckle up to rest against Rosita’s wet cheek. She's crying now, letting go of her insecurity and telling the truth about what's inside. Tara just listens, watching her intently through tired, understanding eyes.

“And god, Sp—I used him, Tara,” Rosita whispers through trembling lips and a tight throat. “Then I watched him die. And I thought—the _only thing_ I could think—what if it were you? What would I have done? Who else would I have gotten killed because I couldn't think with my damn _head_?”

“It's okay,” Tara whispers, voice full of despair. Tense in its determination not to be. “You won't do it again.”

She says it like it's a pledge, and when Rosita begins to turn away again and wipe at her waterfalling tears, Tara uses the tips of her fingers to tilt the desperate face back her way. “ _You won’t_. And I didn't die. I-I’m okay, I will be. Both of us, we will.”

Rosita intakes deeply, so unused to losing power over her own emotions that she doesn't know how to put them back inside. “How can you not walk away from me after what I put you through, after I took my personal shit out on you?"

When Tara answers, it's easy as breathing, and that simple too. “Because I care about you, Rosita. That's what you do.” She can't bring herself to use the words _I love you_ , not when the last person she’d told it to died before it could be reciprocated. Not yet. “I'll take every part of this thing, even if that's too _optimistic_.”

Rosita's eyes grow warm, and Tara smiles for the first time in days or weeks. With teeth and all. And before either of them know it, Tara’s lips are against Rosita’s in a way that's entirely too natural and way too pleasant and— _jesus_ , they're kissing. With their teeth knocking and their hearts pounding.

Once Tara realizes what she's done, she tries to pull back, blushing wildly as she thinks of all the ways she'll try to apologize. Every way she'll think to write it off. It's useless—Rosita only wraps her back up when she tries to turn away. And when their lips touch a second time, a transparent spark ignites itself between and all through them, pulsing dangerously.

Against her better judgement, Tara is the one to pull back, watching as Rosita’s face grows pinker and warmer under the sky’s dying light. When she tilts her head up to think, it's all overwhelming peach and icy blue, so intense yet so opposite to what this world’s turned into.

“Wait,” Tara whispers, inhaling deeply and shutting her eyes tightly, preparing to take the dejection she's been used to her whole life. _I like you, I do. I just don't swing that way._ “I just need to know that this isn't pretend for you.”

Rosita dips her head, opposite to Tara, cheeks growing impossibly warmer and impossibly pinker. “You've never been pretend to me, Tara,” she whispers. “Not once.”

It's kind of ironic, Tara thinks. How the woman she'd been with before Denise died fighting on the wrong side and for the wrong purpose—precisely the way she almost did. How she'd known that prison for just hours before she'd met another person she didn't know would mean the world to her before he died, too. She still doesn't know why he protected her after the terrible thing she did. It's just another reason she knows undeniably that her friend who was about to be a dad and who was too good for this world _did not deserve to die_. Not with his pregnant wife watching and not in any way. He was the purest person she’d ever known. They killed him anyway.

Along with Denise and Sasha and Olivia— _Denise._ And _god,_ why did they have to die? Why did they take a punishment that wasn't theirs to take?

 _They're not people_ , Tara thinks, over and over. It's all she can do to keep from dropping into insanity. _They died when the world did_. Then she thinks, terribly, of what would happen to her if they killed Rosita too. There's nothing warm about it.

“That was better than I pictured,” Tara whispers, pushing out those other thoughts and inches from Rosita’s waiting smile.

“You pictured kissing me?”

“Uh, yeah?” she utters, not knowing how to defend her words. “Kind of. Okay, yes.”

Rosita’s plump, cherry tinted lips widen until Tara's insecurity dissipates. Impossibly, she doesn't pull away, just initiates another kiss until they're tangled limbs and deep intakes and _please, I want this too._

“You want this,” Tara whispers, eyes wide, lips parted.

“ _Yes_.”

 _They'd want this for us, too_ , Tara thinks. _They would._

Rosita’s defenses are down. The walls temporarily disabled. It's take it or leave it, probably. _Take it_ , Tara thinks. This is it.

In this moment of intimacy, they almost forget the world of destruction around them. The wind blows Tara’s tresses disastrously and Rosita holds back a genuine laugh when they won't stay put. This place is just theirs and no one will interrupt.

 

..

 

They don't talk about the kiss afterward—there's an unspoken understanding about it. When Tara asks Rosita if she'll stay tonight, she says yes. And for the first time in a while, Tara feels okay in a way that isn't pretend.

To Tara’s disbelief, Rosita lets her take care of her. Let's her take the dirty t-shirt off and lets her tend to the deep wound in her shoulder until the throb is less present. Today is packed with weird new things, but she knows she wants them undoubtedly.

Rosita winces when Tara dresses the wound too tightly, and when Tara tries to apologize, she just waves it off and laughs weakly. “Police force didn't prepare you for this, huh?”

Tara scoffs halfheartedly, punching Rosita’s uninjured shoulder. “Jerk.”

“What?” she teases. “My job didn't either, if you can even call what I did a job.”

And Tara knows all about it. Rosita’d told her during one of those nights where they drank and told the truth. It's been weeks, probably longer since then. A time before their people started dying in pairs.

“This war isn't over,” Rosita utters, face once again determined and deadly in the dark.

“I know.” Tara's perched exactly where Denise would be, playing doctor for tonight.

“We have to prepare,” Rosita postulates, pulling Tara’s proffered shirt over her head and trying not to wince at the discomfort. 

Tara only nods, unwilling to re-push the issue. Tomorrow, maybe. Tonight, things are peaceful and things are okay.

The worst of it isn't over, and _jesus_ , they wish they didn't know it. More people will die. More pain will tie itself inside of them until it has become them. They know this. But they're preservant, both of them.

Tara thinks about the beginning, how they understood each other even when they disagreed. How they weren't willing to part ways no matter what tried to pry them apart. Those times they walked together and _laughed_ together after days without water. _Yeah_ , they'd seen worse since then. But like tonight, they'd seen better too.


End file.
